Promotional graphic showing '6 Best Tools to extract colors from an image' with color palette samples on a dark blue background, labeled Pixelait.com.

6 best tools to extract colors from an image

Introduction

Color is a fundamental element in design, acting as a silent yet powerful communicator that can influence mood, convey messages, and command attention. Finding the perfect color palette can transform a simple image into a stunning visual narrative. To help designers in this creative work, we’ve gathered a list of the top 6 tools to extract colors from an image. Whether you’re a professional or a beginner, these tools are designed to improve your design workflow and bring your creative visions to life.

1. Adobe Color

Adobe Color is a powerful tool known for its ability to generate color themes from uploaded images. It offers advanced features like color wheel adjustments and harmony rules, making it ideal for creating visually appealing color schemes. Explore advanced color schemes with Adobe Color, and learn more in our guide, “UI Color Palette Metrics: A Guide to Generating Stunning Designs.”

Adobe Color interface showing the option to upload an image for color extraction.
Adobe Color: Advanced color extraction and palette creation.

2. Canva

Canva simplifies color extraction with its user-friendly interface, making it accessible for both professionals and beginners. It allows users to instantly extract a color palette from any uploaded image, which can then be directly applied to various design projects within the platform. Canva’s user-friendly color extraction enhances projects easily—see its impact in “How to Enhance Your Website’s Accessibility.”

Canva's color palette generator interface showing a sample image with extracted colors.
Canva’s Color Palette Generator: Easily extract colors from your photos.

3. Pixelait’s Color Palette Extractor 

Meet Pixelait’s Color Palette Extractor—a tool designed to simplify the color extraction process with unmatched precision and ease. Whether you’re working on UI screenshots, photographs, or artwork, our tool allows you to capture the most essential colors easily. It offers fast, accurate results and is completely free, making it accessible to all designers. Additionally, Figma users can benefit from the tool’s plugin, easily integrating into your design workflow. Read more about our plugin and our tool.

Pixelait Color Palette Extractor interface showing the option to upload an image for color extraction.
Pixelait Color Palette Extractor: Effortlessly generate color palettes from your images

4. Coolors  

Coolors is an intuitive and fast color scheme generator that provides palettes from uploaded images. Users can adjust and refine these palettes, making it a universal tool for quick color inspiration. Generate quick palettes with Coolors; for UI text styles, read “What is a Monospaced Font? 7 Best Use Cases.

Coolors interface showing an image and the extracted color palette.
Coolors: Intuitive and fast color scheme generator

5. TinEye

TinEye shines in color extraction by offering a unique search-by-color option. This feature allows designers to find images based on specific colors, which is invaluable for creating color-themed designs or collections. Use TinEye’s search-by-color for themed designs and learn what should be checked before launching your website “10 Essential Checks Before Launching Your Website.

TinEye color extraction interface showing options to upload an image or enter an image URL.
TinEye: Innovative search-by-color tool for designers.

6. Imagecolorpicker.com

As a straightforward tool, Imagecolorpicker.com lets users click on any part of an uploaded image to instantly get the hex code, RGB, and HSV values of that color. It’s perfect for quick color lookups and minor projects. Get instant color codes with Imagecolorpicker.com, and enhance your understanding in “Adaptive vs. Responsive Design: Tailoring UI for Every Device

Imagecolorpicker.com interface showing the process of picking a color from an image with HEX and RGB values displayed.
Imagecolorpicker.com: Quick and precise color extraction online.

Conclusion

Using the right tools can drastically simplify the process to extract colors from an image, improving both efficiency and creativity in your design workflow. From Adobe Color’s advanced features to Pixelait’s user-friendly and precise Color Palette Extractor, each tool offers unique benefits designed for different needs and skill levels. Use these tools to improve your design process and create more convincing and visually coherent projects.